IMD develops technology to assess rise of water level in rivers, reservoirs by rain

New technology has been developed to assess the rise of water level in rivers and reservoirs by rain and can help state governments to minutely monitor the impact of rainfall.

The technology called the ‘Impact Based Forecasting Approach’ which shows “pre-event scenario” can help authorities in taking real-time decisions, he said.

The heavy downpour that ravaged Kerala for a fortnight ending August 21 caused the death of around 500 people and economic damages worth over Rs 40,000 crore.

The IMD director general admitted that excessive rainfall that led to floods in Kerala was a result of climate change and in terms of rainfall it was very heavy.

“The number of cyclones has increased from 10 to 18 every year as reported in Nature magazine and, secondly, the quantum of precipitation which was 13 days has come down to 10 days.

There is another technology that would help in identifying warm ocean segments that are contributing to the rapid intensification of the systems. Cyclone Ockhi’s unpredictability was due to such warm ocean segments, following which the technology was developed in October, Ramesh said.

Ockhi is the first severe cyclonic storm in almost 40 years to have traveled about 2,400 kilometers from the Bay of Bengal to as far as the Gujarat coast, a senior Met Department official said. Ockhi, which formed as a depression over southwest Bay of Bengal on November 29 last year, intensified into a cyclone off the Kanyakumari coast in Tamil Nadu on November 30 and traveled up to the Gujarat coast before it dissipated on December 6 after weakening into a low-pressure area.